Outdoor manufacturing

Today’s post shows an abandoned millstone on the moors near Mother Cap.

These stones were all carved by individual masons who were capable of producing around 16 pairs of stones per year.

The market for these stones collapsed when white bread became popular in the mid 18th century. The gritstone that these are carved from would turn the flour grey, so french millstones that didn’t have this effect began to be used instead.

When their business disappeared, the masons fought back by destroying the French stones until eventually the military were brought in to put a stop to it.

The millstone lives on however as it is now the official symbol of the Peak District National Park.

https://flic.kr/p/2hSUMMJ

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 22 November 2019

Murky moorland days

This photo was taken on the edge of a small abandoned quarry, up on the moors near Over Owler Tor. It’s likely that gritstone was quarried here for the manufacture of grinding wheels and the like. You can’t see the quarry in the shot – the large boulder is atop the opposite side – but there was a significant drop just in front of my tripod.

The weather was gloomy, misty and damp on the day. Not what you’d usually get excited about, but I’d booked a day off for the trip out a few weeks in advance and had little foreknowledge of the conditions (although, it being November in the UK, I should have had a good idea). I did consider just staying at home, watching TV and reading books, but pushed myself to go out – I’d only have regretted it otherwise – and was glad I did. The conditions were still far from ideal, but the murk and low cloud are atmospheric in themselves and much better than the blanket of featureless flat grey that I’d seen when I got up that morning.

https://flic.kr/p/2hSpQ93

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 22 November 2019

Mother Cap

A couple of photos today that I took while walking on the moors around Over Owler Tor / Higger Tor / Carl Wark  last weekend. I actually shot a couple of rolls – one Delta 400, and one Shangha GP3 – but I’ve only scanned the Delta so far.

I made a concerted effort to remember to use the mirror lock-up on the Bronica this time – a roll of Velvia I shot recently had resulted in a number of shots that were less sharp than I’d hoped, which I’d put down to camera shake caused by mirror slap. All the shots this time were nice and sharp – even those shot at slow shutter speeds (half-a-second and the like). The only downside was my lack of experience in shooting the camera with the mirror locked up. The process is:

1. compose the shot
2. lock up the mirror
3. fire the shutter
4. unlock the mirror
5. wind on to the next frame

If you forget stage 4 and wind the film on, the mirror remains in the locked up position until you take another shot. As a result of this I had a few double frames where I had to take a second, identical photograph (although I altered the aperture in some cases just for the hell of it) as it’s imposible to recompose while the mirror is up.

Anyyway… here are a couple of images of Mother Cap, a gritstone outcrop just below Over Owler Tor in the Peak District national park above Grindleford. It doesn’t look too big in the first image, but it’s a decent size when you’re up close – being maybe 20-25 feet high. The guy at the left of the frame was taking his own photos of the rocks when I caught him up, and was interested to see the view through the Bronica’s waist-level finder.

https://flic.kr/p/2hS1mtK

The second shot is a close-up picture of part of the the formation – this is the actual angle that the layers are at.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 22 November 2019

Barbican sans colour

Another in my mini sequence of photos taken around London’s Barbican complex. This one I’ve decided to convert to black and white as I think the contrasts of light and shade work better in monochrome for this picture. The colour version looked a little washed out in comparison.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus (converted to B&W).

Taken on 13 November 2019

Looking up

I’m ill with a cold today, so very quickly, here’s another shot of the Barbican complex in london. Just needs the Millenium Falcon or something to complete the sci-fi vibe.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 13 November 2019

Smoking

Taken at the Barbican complex in London a couple of weeks ago. It was a quickly grabbed shot as I liked the way the scene was lit and the little splashes of colour on the bins. I’m glad the chap is in the picture too, but I think it might still have worked without him there.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 13 November 2019

On an overcast day

I guess that this is a direct follow on to yesterdays photos, although this one was taken earlier – within a few minutes of the flooded field photograph that I posted a week or so back.

Once again, you will see the appearance of powerlines in the picture. While they add to the composition , they (and the tree and the road) were not the primary reason for taking the photo. That honour goes to the second bush from the right. You can’t tell from this black and white conversion, but it was a vivid autumnal orange, and attracted me to the scene. Alas, the uniform overcast grey sky meant that the colour image was a little drab, even with the splash of orange, so I went for the conversion instead, where the powerlines, tree and road make the shot.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus (converted to B&W).

Taken on 9 November 2019

A compulsive attraction to power?

Nine days. a whole nine days… That’s how long I managed to go without posting more photos of powerlines. I wonder if there’s a name for this weird attraction to them as photographic subjects? There are definately a number of groups devoted to the subject matter on Flickr – I know this because I post my pictures to them sometimes!

I’m probably over-egging this a bit to be fair – it’s not as though I go out of my way to take pictures of them deliberately. I never plan a day out to travel around photographing pylons or anything like that. It’s just that I find that they have a look to them that appeals.

Sometimes, as in the case of the photos today, it’s their surroundings – this time following a route across empty autumnal fields in a way the evokes big empty spaces and calls Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman to mind. It’s a false evocation – here in the UK you’re rarely more than a few miles from civilisation, or at least evidence of such, but that’s one of the beauties of a photograph – they can tell other stories than their reality.

I did wonder about leaving these as colour images. They were shot on a dull, ovecast day with flat light and of a largely muted colour scheme – the only real colour being a soft yellowy beige of the autumnal cropped grasses in the fields – which did have it’s own faded charm. On the whole though, I prefer the black and white versions.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus (converted to B&W).

Taken on 9 November 2019

Padley Gorge

Padley Gorge is a steep sided wooded valley situated in the north east of the Peak District national park, not far from nearby Sheffield. The sides of the gorge are packed with interesting twisty trees and the ground is littered by gritstone boulders of all sizes, many of which are covered by moss and lichens. Burbage Brook runs down the middle of the valley, carrying runoff from the moorland above. It really is a beautiful place.

When I visited last weekend we’d had a considerable amount of rainfall over the preceding weeks and the brook was in spate. It’s always nice to see, even when the flow is gentle, but when the water is a torrent it’s very impresive indeed.

Despite the somewhat grim weather meaning I had to keep putting my (non-weather-sealed) cameras back in the bag at frequent intervals, I had a really nice time walking to the bottom of the gorge – where there’s an excellent cafe the does a great job of filling the bellies of passing hikers – and then back up to the top where I’d parked my car.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Fujifilm Velvia 50.

Taken on 23 October 2019

Mossy topped rock

I shot my first (ever) roll of Velvia last weekend, and today’s picture is the first of them that I’m posting. It’s a fairly simple shot of some autumnal leaves atop a mossy rock.

I underexposed most of the shots as I wanted to try and get nicely saturated colours, and they’re definitely there on the transparencies. Scanning them satisfactorily on my Epson V550 flatbed has taken some work though and they’ve needed quite a bit of Lightroom faffery to get them close to looking like the originals.

I think part of this is down to shooting it in somewhat gloomy conditions – I think I’ll try shooting something in better (or at least sunny) weather next time. I also noticed that a number of photos are a little soft. I have a feeling that this is down to the longer shutter speeds that I needed. Although I was using a tripod, I have a feeling that I ought to have made use of the mirror lock-up switch for these to prevent vibrations.

Oh well, I’ll try that next time.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Fujifilm Velvia 50.

Taken on 23 October 2019